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her. And then she grinned, wrinkling up her nose, looking at him as if they were conspirators. He realised quite suddenly how much he dreaded her departure from this house. There were only three weeks to go to her wedding and then she would be gone, never to return. Cheryl was useless, Cheryl was never at home. He would be alone with the responsibility of Christine, and what guarantee had he now that this state of affairs would ever end, that he would ever be free? He kept seeing Arnham’s car, parked there at the foot of the windowless, ivy-clad wall. Perhaps, like Christine, he had believed, or half believed, that Arnham had never come back, that he was unaccountably still in America. Or ill. Ill in hospital somewhere for months and unable to get in touch. Or even that he had died. He jumped up and said he was going to take Hardy out, take him a bit further than the usual evening ambulation round the block. Would Fee come too? It was a fine mild evening, very warm for April.
    They walked along the pavements between the grassy patches with budding trees and the boundary walls of little square gardens. The grid of streets extended half a mile this way and half a mile that and then merged into Victorian sprawl. At one of the crossroads, waiting while Hardy investigated with exploratory sniffs a pair of gateposts and ceremoniously lifted his leg against them, Philip began to talk about Arnham, about seeing his car that day and therefore knowing now that he had simply deserted Christine. He had become indifferent to her.
    Unexpectedly, Fee said, “He really ought to give Flora back.”
    “Flora?”
    “Well, don’t you think he ought? Like giving back an engagement ring when you break things off, or returning letters.” Fee was an ardent reader of romantic fiction. She would need to be, marrying Darren, Philip sometimes thought. “She’s valuable, she’s not a plastic garden gnome. If he doesn’t want to face Mum, he ought to send her back.”
    This seemed ridiculous to Philip. He wished Christine had been less impetuous in the first place and never decided to present Arnham with this unsuitable gift. They crossed the road, the dog obediently by their side until they reached the opposite pavement, where he began to run on ahead, but decorously, his tail maintaining a constant, cheerful wagging. Philip thought how strange it was, the different lights in which people saw things, even a brother and sister as close as he and Fee. He saw Arnham’s offence in his encouraging Christine to love him and his abandonment of her. Then Fee surprised him by showing how nearly they did see eye to eye. She also shocked him.
    “She thought he’d marry her, she thought that for ages,” Fee said. “And do you know why? I don’t suppose you do, but you know Mum, how sort of strange she is, like a child sometimes. I may as well tell you. You could say she confided in me, but she didn’t say I wasn’t to tell you.
    “Tell me what?”
    “You won’t let on to her I told you, will you? I mean, I think she told me because of being her daughter. It’s sort of different, a son, isn’t it? She just came out with it, out of the blue. It’s why she was certain he’d marry her.” Fee’s eyes returned to his face. They were almost tragic. “I mean, any other woman wouldn’t feel that way or she’d think just the reverse, especially someone her age, but you know Mum.”
    Philip really didn’t have to be told any more. He felt a flush spread up his neck across his face. His face was burning and he put his cold hand up to touch the skin. If Fee noticed, she gave no sign of it.
    “That time he came here and she cooked a meal for them or got takeaway or something and we were all out somewhere, well, he—they— they had sex, made love, whatever you call it. In her bedroom. Suppose one of us had come in? It would have been very embarrassing.”
    He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked, looking down. “I wish you hadn’t told